Panel Unveils Standards for U.S. History

By Karen Diegmueller

The national history standards that were released last week spin a complex and kaleidoscopic tale of the settling and development of the United States.

Woven throughout the 271-page standards document are characters and themes designed to enable girls and boys across racial and ethnic spectra to identify with the U.S. history taught in their classrooms.

But the embodiment of these very elements that supporters say so enrich the standards have provoked outcries of imbalance and revisionism from critics who contend that such a portrayal of the...